Niki Segnit keeps a sack of potatoes in her car. Or at least she did when she wrote The Flavour Thesaurus. She explains that, while her flat was pokey, her car boot was dark and larder-cool, and therefore ideal for storing both potatoes and onions. It is typical of Segnit to tell such a vivid story, impossible for the reader not to imagine her running out of her front door and on to the dark street, possibly in slippers, opening the boot and rummaging in a sack to get an apron full of potatoes for mash.
Segnit’s story reminds me of mine: of being sent to get potatoes from the thick paper sack that was always somewhere shadowy, and of how sticking my arm into the black hole was a nauseating thrill. After all, potatoes are alive until you peel them.
